Designing Multi-Device Experiences

Designing Multi-Device Experiences

by Michal Levin
Released February 2014
Publisher(s): O'Reilly Media, Inc.
ISBN: 9781449340384

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Book description

Welcome to our multi-device world, a world where a user’s experience with one application can span many devices—a smartphone, a tablet, a computer, the TV, and beyond. This practical book demonstrates the variety of ways devices relate to each other, combining to create powerful ensembles that deliver superior, integrated experiences to your users.

  • Learn a practical framework for designing multi-device experiences, based on the 3Cs—Consistent, Complementary, and Continuous approaches
  • Graduate from offering everything on all devices, to delivering the right thing, at the right time, on the best (available) device
  • Apply the 3Cs framework to the broader realm of the Internet of Things, and design multi-device experiences that anticipate a fully connected world
  • Learn how to measure your multi-device ecosystem performance
  • Get ahead of the curve by designing for a more connected future

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Table of contents

  1. Preface
    1. Multi-Device Design Today
    2. Why I Wrote This Book
    3. Who Should Read This Book
    4. How This Book Is Organized
    5. Online Resources
    6. Conventions Used in This Book
    7. Comments and Questions
    8. Safari® Books Online
    9. Acknowledgments
  2. 1. An Ecosystem of Connected Devices
    1. The Concept of an Ecosystem
    2. The 3Cs Framework: Consistent, Continuous, and Complementary
    3. Single-Device Design Is History (Don’t I Know It!)
      1. Hello Smartphones
      2. Hello App Stores
      3. Hello Tablets
    4. It’s an Ecosystem!
    5. Summary
  3. 2. The Consistent Design Approach
    1. What Is Consistent Design?
      1. Optimizing the Consistent Experience
        1. Optimizing for layout
        2. Optimizing for touch
        3. Optimizing for form factor
      2. Keeping the Core Experience Consistent
    2. Consistency in Minimalist Interfaces: Google Search
      1. What’s Consistent Across Devices?
        1. Layout and visual design
        2. Core feature set
      2. What’s Optimized for Each Device?
        1. Promoting alternative input methods
        2. Localizing (relevant) search results
        3. Addressing dynamic contexts with Google Now
    3. Progressive Disclosure in Consistent Design: Trulia
      1. What’s Consistent Across Devices?
        1. Key experience elements
        2. Main flow and interaction
      2. What’s Optimized for Each Device?
    4. Beyond Device Accessibility: Hulu Plus
    5. Devices Are the Means, Not the End
    6. Summary
  4. 3. The Continuous Design Approach
    1. What Is Continuous Design?
    2. Single Activity Flow
      1. Streamlining the Viewing Experience: Apple Airplay
      2. Seamless Content Consumption Experience: Amazon Kindle
      3. Content Creation and Editing Flow: Google Drive
      4. The Link Between Continuous and Consistent Experiences
    3. Sequenced Activities Flow
      1. Adapting the Experience to Devices’ Strengths: Allrecipes
        1. Under the hood: Examine the user’s workflow
        2. Design lesson: Rethink user flows
        3. Design lesson: Break down the continuous experience steps even more
      2. Adapting the Experience to Changing Needs: Eventbrite
        1. Under the hood: Examining the user’s workflow
        2. Design exercise: Expanding the continuous flow
      3. Bridging Physical and Digital: POP
        1. Under the hood: Examining the user’s workflow
        2. Design lesson: Continuous experience can start offline
      4. Expanding Continuity With an Open Platform: Pocket
        1. Under the hood: Examining the user’s workflow
        2. Design lesson: Divide and conquer
        3. Design lesson: The power of openness
    4. Summary
  5. 4. The Complementary Design Approach
    1. What Is Complementary Design?
    2. Collaboration: Must-Have
      1. Playing With Friends: Real Racing 2—Party Play
        1. Design Lesson: Extending the game experience
        2. Design lesson: A new species of game controllers
      2. Digitalizing Social Games: Scrabble for iPad—Party Play
        1. Data, data, data
        2. Richer, more streamlined game experiences
        3. Lower barriers for entry
      3. Integrating Must-Have and Nice-To-Have Designs: Pad Racer
      4. Not Just for Multi-Party Games: KL Dartboard
    3. Collaboration: Nice to Have
      1. Social Layer Atop Television Viewing: Heineken Star Player
      2. Second-Screen Experience as a Platform: Intonow
        1. Design lesson: A second-screen experience can go beyond a specific show
        2. Design lesson: A second-screen experience doesn’t have to be associated with a predetermined broadcast time
        3. Design lesson: A second-screen experience can complement TV watching continuously
      3. Tying Together Watching Experiences: Avengers
    4. Control: Nice to Have
      1. Not Necessarily a Simultaneous Experience: Slingbox
      2. When Collaboration and Control Meet: Xbox Smartglass
    5. Fascinating Use Cases: What Do They Mean for My Work?
    6. Summary
    7. A Summary of the 3Cs
  6. 5. Integrated Design Approaches
    1. 3Cs as Building Blocks
      1. Multi-Device Experiences Are in Their Infancy
      2. User Needs Aren’t Black and White
      3. Great Devices Lead to Great Expectations
      4. Approaching Multi-Device Experiences: Dos and Don’ts
    2. Integrated Approaches: Another Look at Our Examples
      1. Complementary and Consistent: Slingbox
        1. Design lesson: Design approaches can complete each other
        2. Design lesson: Design approaches should be prioritized within an experience
        3. Design lesson: Context awareness can take us far
      2. Continuous and Consistent: Allrecipes
        1. Design lesson: Different design approaches promote people to their goals in different ways
        2. Design lesson: Optimize the design for the most suitable device for the task
      3. Articulating the Ecosystem Narrative
      4. Complementary, Consistent, and Continuous: HULU PLUS, WII U, and Xbox Smartglass
        1. Design lesson: A new TV ecosystem experience standard?
    3. Integrated Approaches: A Fresh Look at New Examples
      1. Complementary and Consistent: Withings Smart Baby Monitor
      2. Complementary and Consistent: Bitponics
      3. When Complementary and Consistent Design Meet
    4. Summary
  7. 6. Beyond the Core Devices
    1. The Internet of Things
    2. Is the Internet of Things Already Here?
    3. Expanding the 3Cs
      1. Adaptive Design: Nest—The Learning Thermostat
        1. The ecosystem experience
        2. Design lesson: The control relationship between devices is not bound to the TV
        3. Design lesson: Extracting (actionable) knowledge from data
      2. Augmenting the Smartphone: Bikn
        1. The ecosystem experience
        2. Design lesson: Augmenting device capabilities with hardware accessories
      3. Rethinking User Behaviors: Square
        1. The ecosystem experience
        2. Design lesson: The power of technology in enforcing naïvete
      4. Integrated Multi-Device Experiences: Nike+
        1. The ecosystem experience
        2. Using a flow diagram for mapping the multi-device ecosystem
        3. Joining forces
      5. Wearable-Based Experience: Pebble Watch
        1. The ecosystem experience
        2. Design lesson: Focus, simplicity, context
      6. Tapping into Service Design: Tesco Virtual Supermarket
        1. The ecosystem experience
        2. Design lesson: Identifying new contexts of use
        3. Design lesson: Stepping into service design
      7. Augmented Reality: Ikea’s 2013 Catalog
        1. The ecosystem experience
        2. Design lesson: QR supports continuity; AR provides a complementary experience
      8. A Multi-Device (Open) Platform: Smartthings
        1. The ecosystem experience
        2. Design lesson: The complexity and trade-offs behind the freedom “to do anything”
        3. Design lesson: Keep focusing on the people
    4. Summary
  8. 7. Multi-Device Analytics
    1. User Data Is User Feedback
      1. Actions Speak Louder than Words
        1. More user diversity
        2. More use contexts—especially on the go
        3. More connected devices
        4. Social influence
      2. How Do We Gather Data?
    2. Multi-Device Analytics
      1. Consistency: Applying the Current Analytics Paradigm Across Devices
      2. Complementary and Continuous: Expanding the Analytics Paradigm to New Domains
        1. “Visit” redefined
        2. Introducing goal conversion for an ecosystem
        3. Expanding goal flows and conversion paths
        4. Examining complementary and continuous flows
    3. Additional Analytics Considerations
      1. TV and Social Analytics
      2. Measuring Your Ecosystem Roi
        1. Ads
        2. Virtual goods
        3. Optimizing the multi-device experience
    4. Summary
  9. 8. Transforming Challenges
    1. Ecosystem Design and Development Challenges
      1. Organizational Collaboration Challenges
      2. The Walled Garden Challenge
      3. Resource and Time-To-Market Challenges
    2. Ecosystems Don’t Happen Overnight
    3. Ecosystem Adoption Challenges
      1. The Challenge of Getting the Ecosystem Up and Running
      2. The App Overload Challenge
    4. One Ecosystem Heart
      1. My First Heart and Ecosystem
      2. One Ecosystem Heart Firsts
        1. Search-driven adaptation: Everything.me
        2. Automatic interface adaptation: Aviate
        3. Intent-driven design
      3. Personalization Can (And Will) Go Further
    5. A New, Disrupted (Human) World
    6. Summary
  10. A. Companies, Products, and Links
  11. B. About the Author
  12. C. Colophon
  13. Index
  14. About the Author
  15. Copyright

Product information

  • Title: Designing Multi-Device Experiences
  • Author(s): Michal Levin
  • Release date: February 2014
  • Publisher(s): O'Reilly Media, Inc.
  • ISBN: 9781449340384